The Best of all Possible Worlds

Great Debates
222

I don’t see it as an argument against souls, myself. In theory we could have etherial cables plugged into our brains and sharing part of the processing work with the Big Computer In The Sky. Of course if this was the case mind and personality altering physical drugs would have no effect on the etherial portion and it would be impossible to do rare anomolous things like ‘get drunk from beer’. But that’s a separate argument: the mere fact that souls would need to function in a complex manner too isn’t an argument against their existing.

Personally I see no reason to distinguish between conscious and subconscious mind in this discussion: we have a mind, it processes data, it changes between states based on rules that are quite clearly not entirely random. That’s all we need to know.

As for whether we have free will or merely an illusion of it - wouldn’t it be helpful to define it first? Because in all honesty, aside from the “I’m completely unpredictable” part, we actually have most of what goes into free will: our thought processes are self-contained and relatively independent of outside influence, and they do make the choices that drive our lives. (See below.)

Choice only assumes that you have “free will” in the sense that your decisions are based on internal machinations and are not (completely) imposed externally. Thus, people make choices, computers make choices, anything that does internal calculation or deliberation prior to taking one action of several possibilities makes a choice. That’s how the word is used in english, pretty much whether you choose to like it or not.

And I’ll never understand the kind of thinking that says, “If my thoughts are deterministic, then it suddenly becomes rational to determine that the best way to act is one that will subject me to physical pain.” Why should realizing that your decisions are not made independently of your mind lead you to conclude that pain is suddenly a good thing?

Remember, this whole determinism thing isn’t taking your mind out of the equation. Your mind is part of the equation: the part that makes the choices as to what you do. That’s kinda what your mind is for - directing how your body reacts to its environment in order to be able to avoid danger, find safety, and purchase lattes. Mainly purchasing lattes. You’re a walking, talking, latte purchasing machine, and everything you think and learn and remember is done to hone your ability to react to your environment and better achieve your goals - which is to say, to purchase more lattes.

That being the case, what part of realizing that your mind is there to guide you towards satisfying it’s preferences (lattes!), what part of realizing that makes sabotaging yourself the better course to choose? Supposing you meet a god, and he offers you the choice: have a latte, or die. What is the line of thinking that is inexorably leading you to the conclusion that you should ask for death?

Because if you have such a line of thinking operating foremost in your head, then that’s what you’ll do: lines of thinking are how our brain calculates how to choose to act. That’s the determinism part. But this only happens if there’s a line of thought that deterministically leads to the conclusion, so for the love of all that’s caffinated, why on earth do you think asking to die would be a good idea?

Omnipotence is about what you could do. Omnibenevolence is what you would do. The actions a god (or anyone) take is always selected from the intersection of these two sets. This isn’t really a conflict, for most usual definitions of choice.

Faith is merely an abrogation of thought on the subject - it’s not a counter to a proof so much as a refusal to think about the subject. Admittedly, it’s usually pretty easy not to find it necessary to think about the subject, but that isn’t a strike against the proof, it’s a strike against the person refusing to think about it logically.

So it’s okay to recognize that no proof can convince the wilfully ignorant; of course it won’t. But then not accepting the logic of the proof yourself just because the theists won’t is kind of like jumping off the cliff because everyone else is doing it.

Just sayin’.

An omnimax god is not limited to only using Big Bangs as creation methods. Alternatively he could just pop the universe into existence in incremental steps over the course of a week, eschewing evolution entirely and just molding every living thing out of clay. Or he could just snap his fingers and pop the entire universe into being with the exact world-state as our universe was in last thursday, right down to our mental states containing false memories of the past. All these are possible for any god that is even vaguely close to omnimax. In fact, as can be seen from the example of last thursdayism, an omnimax god can create the universe directly into any logically-possible state, without having to shuttle it through any prior steps beforehand to reach that point, because having to go through prior steps is a logically unnecessary limitation on the power of the god.

So: The universe has a set of logically possible optimal states, and Omnimax God could (and would) ensure that the universe both started in and stayed in that set of states. If that required constant intervention on his part, so be it - he has the ability and will to do so. If he lacks the ability or will, then he’s not omnimax.

Also: how would evolution be an explanation of the Problem of Suffering? Letting the weak die (very likely while suffering) is an intrinsic part of evolution.

Also: When you start talking about being “worthy of worship”, you lose me, since worship strikes me as an inherently bad idea for both worshipper and worshipee, unless the entity demanding worship will lash out with punishment when they don’t get it, in which case they’re obviously not worthy. So the set of gods that should be worshipped is distinct and non-overlapping with the ones that are ‘worthy’ of it. (Assuming any are.)

If we’re random, then determinism is not true. And volition is necessarily a process: a mainly deterministic process, if we’re not random. There cannot possible be atomic “volition particles” that individually handle the process of accumulating, storing, analizing, and acting on the full body of knowledge and information that goes into human or godly decision making.

It’s tivially easy to define a logically possible universe that doesn’t have evil in it, for any non-logically-impossible definition of “good”. That is, if good itself is not logically impossible, then a universe could be created that exactly meets the definition. This is true by definition.

And you are grotesquely overblowing the limits implied by logical possibility. There is a rather wide chasm between “lacks square circles” and “necessarily contains evil”, unless you define evil as the lack of square circles. Failing that you are just saying “Are square circles possible? No? Then it’s probably logically impossible for it to snow in the winter, too. One thing being logical impossible means anything probably is.”

Obviously, this is not particularly compelling logic.

Especially since the empty universe and universes containing only the benevolent god are certainly logically possible (again, assuming that benevolent gods themselves aren’t logically impossible, which is necessary for your position in the argument). These theoretical worlds being possible definitively prove that evil is not necessary. (And no, accessibility doesn’t matter here.)

223

This is actually easier than you think, because we can create the universe with little or nothing in it with which to assemble contradictions from. Possible universes don’t have to be even remotely similar to our universe; a theoretical abstract sphere containing only mathematical axioms is a possible universe, for example, as it can be constructed to contain no contradictions.

This universe is possible because all actual things are possible, and our universe is actualized. This isn’t a contentious aspect of his argument.

ETA: keeping in mind, of course, that we might be completely misled about what our universe is actually like. Evil magician, and all that. But there nonetheless is indeed an actualized universe of some kind under there, as it’s necessary to have one as a substrate to contain the mind that thinks cogito ergo sum.

224

Well, I wouldn’t say probably, but possibly. Think of, for instance, whiteness: one thing’s being white implies that anything can possibly be white (as long as it is possible for it to have colour). So one thing’s being white disproves the assertion that, for instance, my car can’t be white (can’t in the now well worn sense of is logically impossible to be).

225

I agree with this. I’ve said the same thing myself.

However, some of the simplest-defined worlds are those defined relative to ours. It’s too much of a concession to exclude such worlds from our arguments because of vague hand-waving about “perhaps there’s some reason, that we don’t know, that they are logically inconsistent”.

Logical consistency should be the default assumption.

:confused:
I didn’t say anything about this universe’s possibility. I was talking about whether it is logically consistent.

226

I’m getting a sense of deja vu.

The way you are using this “possible” thing is a statement of ignorance that does not logically support the contention that the claim in question is true. It is logically possible for your car to be white - unless and until facts are introduced to the contrary. Supposing, for example, that the fact is introduced into evidence that your car is (completely) brown, then we can see that being “possible” is (still) argumentively worthless as a proof of whiteness or a disproof of whiteness, despite the statement that it was “possible”, the car turned out not to be white after all.

Or perhaps a better example would be, suppose you claim that the fact that some things are white makes that it is possible for your car to be entirely white. That is, that the complete set of things that are parts of your car are white.

And then I point out that your steering wheel is brown (not white). I’d say that that introduced fact proves that “The car part is white” is not necessarly true.

Replace “car part” with “possible world”.
Replace “white” with “contains nonzero evil”
Replace “steering wheel” with “empty world”.

227

Well, right. Mysterious Ways are bullshit. However when dealing with people who are willing to wallow in the bullshit and claim it’s tasty tasty chocolate pudding, it behooves one to employ examples that sidestep the “well, maybe if we were all invulnerable and omnibenevolent kittens would die” crap entirely.

In this argument, the word “possible” basically means “logically consistent”. It’s a term of art taken from modal logic.

The management apologizes for the fact that the terms of art in modal logic make for confusing conversation. It further apologizes for the fact that most or all religious arguments that employ modal logic rely on subterfuge and legerdemaine regarding misunderstandings of the definition of the terms of art, to con people into accepting premises and assertions they never would if they grokked the actual meanings.

The management also suspects that the fact that it could be used in this way may be part of why modal logic was invented as it was, but the management can’t prove that and might be completely wrong.

228

Disagree.

The point is that I was talking about empirical facts, not arguing from logical first principles. As obvious as it may be that P & ~P is impossible, that’s the wrong basis to be making empirical claims from.

I’m sure that one could write a convincing argument that two events cannot be both simultaneous and separated in time, or that a cat cannot be both alive and dead. There’s a danger in making claims about the universe a priori.

Also, even if it were true that everything that is possible is logically consistent, the inverse obviously doesn’t hold (e.g. FTL is logically consistent, but not possible), so the terms clearly are not interchangable.

So what am I saying, that our universe is inconsistent?
No – I’m just saying that we can’t argue logical consistency from modal logic. Nonetheless it makes sense to assume consistency: the default position should be to assume the nonexistence of contradictions.

229

I’m sorry, but in this thread, when you see somebody saying “possible” (especially in even tangential reference to the words “world” or “universe”), it is nigh-absolutely certain that the indended meaning was either “logically possible”, or alternatively it’s fallacious rhetorical legerdemaine. And if one doesn’t want to be tricked by the fallacious rhetorical legerdemaine, there is essentially no option but to rigidly restrict oneself to the meanings given the words as modal logic terms of art.

Essentially, that means that the words “necessary”, “possible”, and “world” are off-limits from use in their normal english meanings. If one breaches this rule, the creeping evil of fallacy will begin to encroach again with unrelenting unrelentingness.

If that bothers you…that’s actually perfectly understandable. Nonetheless that’s just the way things are: the management apologizes. Profusely.

And there are no logical inconsistencies in the actualized universe. If somebody manages to write a “convincing argument” that something in the universe is logically inconsistent, then the argument (provably) is unsound.

And I’m not sure what you mean by “we can’t argue logical consistency from modal logic”. In one sense, that is 100% all that modal logic (or any logic) is for.

230

Yes, I recognise the distinction, but something kicked us off on this tangent.

And I think it may be a sleight of hand in Half Man Half Wit’s argument:

It seems that for our universe, it’s OK to say that our universe is logically consistent in a formal sense (even if we can never be sure if it is consistent observationally), but when suggesting alternative realities, formal proof of consistency is insufficient. Such a universe must be shown to be consistent in practice before it’s “allowed” as a counter to BPW.
That’s not fair.

231

Pretty much; essentially he’s claiming that evil is like a bubble under the wallpaper: you push it down flat in one place and inevitably (logically inevitably) an equivalent or larger amount of evil pops up elsewhere. Possibly as an obvious unintended consequence (overpopulation from the removal of death), or possibly through some arcane and Mysterious avenue that is incomprehensible to sane people, but nonetheless required by Logic.

The main (ie: only) support for this theory is his requirement that to disprove it, we map out the entire universe that we are proposing. In excrutiating detail. Just to make sure that that change in the way that photons were reflected doesn’t trigger some strange subatomic chain reaction that destroys the universe, y’know. Which is of course impossible to do so therefore he must be right.

Of course, the kick in his argument’s balls it the fact it takes verly little time at all to map out a universe with nothing in it, and almost as little time to map out a universe containing only Mr. Omnimax God (who must me logically possible or the OP’s argument is a non-starter due to self-contradiction being introduced from the get-go). Via these we can easily annihilate the protest that we can’t think up worlds with less evil in them than ours. Which may be why the only times he seems to acnowledge that such worlds are logically possible is when he’s arguing that they don’t count for some abstract reason.

And it’s almost certainly why he’s ignored my (admittedly understated) point that all prior points in our universe’s history are also possible worlds, and as certainly possible as ours is. And if any of them differ in the slightest iota regarding the total amount of evil, then one or the other of them is an actualized example of a suboptimal logical world - and that at all point except the instants of minimal evil, we know there was no omnimax god. And if there was no omnimax god in all those times, there probably wasn’t one during the optimal moments either.

232

begbert2, I’ve read your reply to my post. ISTM that we (both atheists) have different ideas about the object of the logical inquiry into God’s existence. Which is fine. Were the points more germaine to the OP, I’d probably continue. As it is, they seem to me tangential, so I’m going to let them go and bow out of the thread.

233

Yes, exactly.

And this is where I get the deja vue. The argument is not supposed to prove the car either white or not white. It is merely supposed to disprove the logical impossibility of the car’s being white. Which it does: Let’s say the claim, equivalent to the POE, is that ‘HMHW’s car can’t be white’. Then, we observe a white thing. We know that there exists a thing that is white. Hence, it is possible for things to be white. My car is a thing. As it’s possible for things to be white, it’s possible for my car to be white.

In actuality, it’s black. This doesn’t change anything about the argument at all, however; it’s entirely logically possible for my car to be white.

I would say it is consistent definitionally – logic is, in a sense, concerned with finding out which states of affairs can be actualized; so any actual state of affairs must be logically consistent, or else, the logic is wrong.

If you’ve got a proof that all swans are white, and you find a black one, you wouldn’t really suggest that well, this is just an example of a ‘true contradiction’ – i.e. it’s logically impossible for black swans to exist, and yet, black swans do exist (a position which would make all arguments impossible anyway) --, you’d rather examine the premises and validity of your argument, and most likely find a flaw there; and if you didn’t, you’d still probably rather re-examine the axioms of your logic than just throw your hands up.

Besides, contradictions explode, so if the world contains any, every proposition is true, such as ‘I am wearing my underpants on my head right now’; yet, this conspicuously fails to be actually the case.

If you can provide one, shoot (I’m not sure I ever said this, btw.). The thing is just that it’s somewhat unclear to me how you’d formalize ‘worldness’ – or perhaps, existence. What does it mean for something to be a possible world? For instance, one could well argue that an empty world is impossible, as the existence of nothing is impossible, what with all the problems of whether or not existence is a predicate, conventional logic needing a non-empty domain of discourse, and so on.

Well, that’s a reasonable common requirement – if you’re proposing a counterexample to something, show it actually is one, don’t just assert it might be. I can’t disprove the twin prime conjecture by simply saying ‘there are no twin primes greater than eleventeen gabazillion’, I’d have to prove it.

I’ve repeatedly said that I don’t acknowledge these worlds to be possible. For an empty world, how could nothing exist? For a sole omnimax god, what could omnibenevolence mean if there’s nothing to be benevolent with regards to?

Those aren’t even complete worlds, why would I count them as possible ones? They’re states of one world, ours, and make up ours in their totality.

Also, what does ‘a moment in time’ mean in a relativistic universe – what time is it on Andromeda right now?

234

Actually the “Creation vs. intervention” sub-topic was pretty on-point, since it proves that the entire concept of an omnimax Simgod running a simulation with evil in it and then declaring it optimal is inherently impossible, since an omnimax god would not refrain from meddling with and correcting the simulation.

But it you don’t want to debate for or against that, then cheers!

Let’s all note you said this.

Your last line here is completely, overtly, absolutely, and obviously false. As you just freaking admitted. The fact your car is black is a fact that is to the contrary to the possiblity that it’s white. The moment that this fact of blackness is introduced, the conclusion of your “it’s possible it’s white” argument folds like a house of cards, because it itself has no argumentive power and is not a proof or disproof of anything.

It’s facile bullshit. There are numerous other ways to prove that a world is possible besides mapping it out or producing it in reality - but you reject them all, not because they’re insufficient or invalid, but because they destroy your argument.

It is of course logically possible for nothing to exist. And a God that creates nothing is being benevolent to all the people he’s not allowing to be born addicted to heroin.

Yawn.

The world could have ended after any moment and been created immediately prior to that moment in that state - every individual state thus describes a logically possible world that could be an entire world in and of itself. So yes - you must deal with each separately.

It’s right now on Andromeda right now. Are you hoping that with this pathetic dodge you are going to convince us that there is no such thing as history?

Because I’ll actually let you convince me of that. But if that’s the case and there is not history, and time is an illusion, then you have just disproven causality. And if there is no causality, then you just blew the crap out of every possible cause for suffering: a universe where everyone is perpetually experiencing the bliss of just having won the lottery or having an orgasm or whatever feels best is suddenly proven possible, because there can be no contradicting ramifications of this state, becuase there are no ramifications of anything, becuase you just denied that time passes at all.

Actually even if time does pass we still could be having orgasmic dreams without negative consequences; it’s certainly and provably logically possible, because God can simply make all the possible negative consequences go away with constant intervention (ie: regularly giving us sponge-baths and changing our IVs and bedpans). Whoops, there’s another logically possible world that disproves we’re optimal. They practically spring out of the woodwork, don’t they?

235

FWIW, that’s basically what I was arguing. If you agree, there’s nothing to debate. :slight_smile: But I get there on evidential rather than logical grounds, which is why I think it’s not germaine to the OP. As I said earlier, the OP seems to be arguing that, epistemologically, we can’t be certain God can intervene without making the situation worse overall. (Actually, HMHW makes the argument in the context of creation, but it applies to the intervention problem as well.) As I also said, this may even be true (or not), but I don’t care. As a materialist, I work probabilities, not certainties. Again, taking me out of the OP. ISTM you want to argue the logical problem and the creation problem. That’s fine and what the OP is about. Carry on.

BTW, since I’m posting, I will mention one aspect of the debate (meaning the global one, not just this thread) which has been bugging me. Benevolence doesn’t have only to do (or even mostly) with reducing evil. It’s also about (perhaps mainly about) maximizing good, including an afterlife. Or maybe it’s about maximizing the ration of good to evil. If either of those is correct (an assumption, obviously, but how I think most Christians think about the problem), the stuff about minimizing evil by creating an empty set pretty much misses the point.

236

I have from the outset agreed that if you prove there’s a logically possible world that contains less evil than this one, the argument (at least in this form) is shot out of the water.

Yes, exactly. Well, not to the possibility – but to the actuality. As would the fact that some world exists with less evil than this one be contrary to the possibility that this world is the least evil one – these are the facts for you to supply – this is the burden of proof if you want to argue against Leibniz’ argument. However, the fact that my car is black does not mean that it couldn’t have been black; just that this possibility isn’t actualized. And if the possibility exists for my car to be white, the assertion of the logical impossibility for it to be black is, obviously, refuted.

Is this point really so subtle? Somebody says, ‘x is impossible’. You refute this through exhibiting a possible set of circumstances in which x, in fact, is the case. This is a total refutation of the original claim – ‘x is impossible’ essentially means ‘there is no possible set of circumstances such that x is the case’. Now, in actuality, x may or may not be the case – that’s after all what ‘x is possible’ means; so if x is found not to be the case, that doesn’t do anything to refute this argument (fundamentally, because P doesn’t imply P, pointless pedantry or not).

I don’t reject those ways to prove a world is possible, I reject that there are such ways. I don’t think you could logically prove this world to be possible (you’d at least need a theory of everything for that); you can only accept it to be, since it exists. This fact then shapes what we consider acceptable for our logic; if it disagrees with actuality, we reconsider it. Such a logic, in which what we consider possible is predicated on what is actual in our world, then has little to say about the actuality of other worlds.

You’d have to show that for me to believe it; suffice it to say that this is an ongoing debate in metaphysics I’m not really prepared to consider settled just because you say so.

He’s benevolent to people that don’t exist? That’s not even wrong.

Oh? Could it? How?

No, in that case, I would have, for each world, a state of ours, plus its spontaneous creation and annihilation; so while each state of our world may be logically possible, this doesn’t say anything about the logical possibility of these ‘hiccup worlds’. Furthermore, the possibility of each moment may be predicated on the actuality of the prior moment.

Well, I was merely thinking about simultaneity, but you could say something like that. Because, to you, right now on Andromeda may be a totally different time than to me, particularly if I’m driving around in my possibly white car. This just demonstrates that it isn’t all that easy to slice up a relativistic universe – you only get a complete spatial slice for one privileged observer in general, which is a state of affairs really only compatible with some form of solipsism.

Nah, causality is a local notion, history’s a global one. That there is no global history – i.e. no sequence of events different observers can always agree on – doesn’t imply anything wrt local causality; that’s a conserved notion, and anything in your causal past will be in your causal past for all observers. Events far enough apart in space-time (i.e. so far that the space between them can’t be bridged by a light ray in the time that elapses between their occurrence), however, don’t have a unique time-ordering; one observer may regard A as having happened before B, while another may regard it the other way round.

But anyway, I really should try and get outta here. I’m not sure why I fail to get my point across – it’s fundamentally simple: somebody says, an omnipotent god can do everything he wants, so he can make a world without evil; Leibniz says, well, even an omnipotent god can’t do anything he wants (like, for instance, create worlds with square circles, or Königsbergs where you have to cross each bridge only once), so your conclusion doesn’t follow. That’s really all there is to it.

That I’ve failed to get this across so far doesn’t bode well for any further attempts, and probably by now everybody is far too entrenched to let any argument against their position count; so, while I’d still like to find out exactly where the disconnect happens, it’s probably the sanest thing to do to bow out, this time for real.

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238

HMHW, I guess we’re done, but on the assumption you’ll come back to see what’s posted, I will mention this. For reasons stated, I’ve not engaged the OP as such (and, so, don’t mind that you’ve mostly ignored my posts), but it should be noted that many posters (not just begbert2) have disputed the proposition that God’s ability to create a world without evil and/or intervene to prevent it in any way resembles the square circle problem. Frankly, I think I granted you more than you deserved in indulging the argument (because, even if true, I think it’s unimportant). If you care to revive the argument, here or elsewhere, you might consider more attention to that point. To state the obvious, bland assertion doesn’t make it true.

Also, I will mention that Plantinga’s free will disputation of the logical POE (discussed in the IEP article linked above) makes a similar argument with more meat on the bones. (Importantly, in the realm of what’s possible, not necessarily what’s likely or true.) FWIW, that seems to me that’s a more productive argument then Leibniz’s. YMMV.

239

I’m sorry if you think I’ve been purposely ignoring you, but most of your posts just seemed to be directed to other people; if you feel there’s something you posted that escaped my attention, just point it out to me again, it’s a big thread, and things do get lost (I’m not making any promises at this point, though).

Well, I don’t really require them to be much alike, I think. Is the problem of creating Königsberg such that you can cross all seven bridges without having to cross one twice like the problem of creating square circles? I could see arguing both sides on the issue – it’s alike in some respects, different in others.

I merely need the square circles to provide an example – to show that, even though one might naively expect it, omnipotence does not mean that god can do all he wants to, and hence, the conclusion ‘since god can do all he wants to, he can create a world without evil’ does not follow.

I’m not sure I see that great a difference between Plantinga’s and Leibniz’ arguments. Besides, I have problems with the notion of free will, and I think that any argument that relies on the notion is built on somewhat shaky grounds.

240

You are absolutely correct that to do this discussion seriously, one would have to define “benevolent” in a rigorous manner. HMHW’s OP implicitly did this, though: he framed the argument explicitly relating to the quantity of evil in the universe, and whether it was zero/non-zero. This is an explicit and clear statement that omnibenevolence is defined in this discussion as “unwilling to permit unnecessary evil”.

It’s not surprising that he did this because the POE that he’s responding to explicitly defines omnibenevolence in exactly the same way.

It should be noted that per one of the links in this thread, Leibniz actually played around a bit with the definition of omnibenevolence. (Or was it the definition of “good”? Oh well, same difference.) Specifically, iirc, he proposed that variety was inherently “good”. Which if people accepted would be a decent attack against the POE - the problem being, of course, that I don’t accept screwy definitions like that. So it’s probably just as well that HMHW hasn’t tried to wander down those paths.

Regardless, addressing your more direct point: you’re correct that with a definition of benevolence that gave positive points for good in addition to negative points for evil, the empty universe might end up non-optimal. Not that it much matters - not only is “unwilling to permit unnecessary evil” the definition in play, but I have also provided various other certainly-possible universes as well, all of which have less evil and most of which have more happiness than ours too. They’re not at all hard to think of, after all.

Now, it’s my turn to make an unsolicited point: I don’t really “get” the supposed distinction between the “logical” and “evidential” POE arguments. The “logical” argument includes the premise “evil exists in our world” - that’s a premise argued from evidence, right? So all POE arguments are evidential. So I personally can’t grok accepting some and saying that the others aren’t under discussion based on some arbitrary logical/evidential divide.

The whole damned point of your argument is to slyly infer that in our possible universe, the car is white, because there are vague similarities between our universe and the optimal universes (or at least there are when you unsoundly assume that the vague similarities are there). That is the point of your argument.

I mean, what is your argument if you AREN’T trying to prove this? It’s a nine-step process to prove that…both our current world and at least one optimal world are both possible. Which are both things that can be accepted axiomatically. This alone doesn’t disprove the POE, obviously.

So in order to not be saying nothing, you are saying that the white car is actualized - that there is observable evidence that we are in the optimal world. Of course your observable evidence is shit (they and us would both be questioning the evil we see, assuming they see any!), but that’s still what you’re trying to do. And that is the point that the fact your car is actualizedly black comes into play, and disproves your argument.

Perhaps if you stopped strawmanning the POE?

The POE certainly doesn’t say that optimal worlds are impossible. Heck, the lemma is usually included that optimal worlds with no evil at all are possible! So clearly when you claim the POE says that optimal worlds are impossible, you are strawmanning it to turn it from the impervious proof it is into something you can deal with.

THe claim “we live in a universe with no unnecessary evil” disagrees with actuality. Just sayin’.

The word games are tiring. Consider a good with the choice of creating a bunch of entities that will spend their entire lives in absolute misery and infinite suffering, or not creating them. Which would an omnibenevolent god do?

Or, heck, consider god deciding whether or not to do anything evil. Is refraining from doing the evil not benevolent? If so, things not done and things not created count when one is assessing benevolence.

Um, omnipotence? Remember omnipotence? Omni-potence? That thing with the O and the P in it? That thing?

This is absurd. You now have your supposedly omnipotent god not only unable to intervene, and not only unable to do obviously logically-possible things like having germ theory be discovered in time to precede the black death, but you’re also not granting him the power to create or destroy worlds either? What are you going to allow him to do? Anything?

No - I don’t think so. Omnipotence has a meaning, just like omnibenevolence does - and now I’m going to tell you what that meaning is:

  1. There is a set of possible world-states P. (“possible world state” is actually identical in meaning to what “possible world” actually means in modal logic, but given the obfuscation around “possible world” this term may make it clearer what is actually being discussed.)

Given 1), an entity is omnipotent if and only if that entity is able to change the universe to any possible world-state at any time, at will, without limitation. That is, if a configuration of reality is logically possible, the diety can make the universe be in that configuration, instantly.

A few things that follow from omnipotence:

The entity can create the universe into any state they want: they are not limited to starting it with a big bang and can instead start it the state it was at 2:38pm last tuesday - or even at the current moment.

Presuming the entity created our universe, that proves that a state without a created universe (and with the god) is a possible state. It being a possible state, the entity could will it to be the case at any moment, ending the universe without so much as a poof of smoke: they could do it next year, or tomorrow, or even the barest instant after creation.

Omnipotent beings are not bound by the laws of physics. The laws of physics strive to describe and predict which states the universe can ‘naturally’ move to from any given state; an omnipotent being is necessarily not bound by these predictions.

Similarly, they’re not bound by normal causality, what they will to be will be whether it would naturally occur based on the prior world-state or not.

Following from the prior: if god need not allow the world to stray or evolve from an optimal state to a worse state: if it were indeed the case that there was a single optimal world-state and all others were worse in his eyes, then he could will the universe to stay in the single optimal state perpetually.

And finally…and this is subtle…if the entity has sentience and a will, then whatever happens cannot contradict their will, because if it begins to do so the entity will just alter the universe’s state to something more palatable. Put another way, if anything happens, it proves that the entity wanted it to happen, or at least that there is no logically-possible world-state that is at all more palatable to the entity. This obviously included the world-state as it was immediately prior to the occurrence of the event: so anything that happens, it is logically proven that God wanted it to happen.

As might be obvious, this is just the POE with the ‘omnibenevolence’ and 'evil generalized to ‘what God wants’ and ‘what god doesn’t want’. And in my opinion, it’s an even more telling argument than the POE itself: it proves that not only do babies dying show that there is not an omnibenevolent god, they also show that if there is an omnipotent omniscienct god, that liked it that babies died. All that happens God not only allows, but supports and endorses. This obviously flies hard in the face of every branch of christianity ever (aside from ones that don’t claim omnipotence or near-omnipotence).

I will add that, based on the earlier cite, Leibniz was well aware of this. The answer to this is the same as the answer to the usual POE: to argue that the current world is optimal in some sense. The rational way to do this is to argue/admit that God doesn’t give a shit about human suffering, but I don’t gather many christians do that - he did apparently make some arguments towards the direction of God having larger concerns than humanity, though.

God’s the observer. Call that solipsism if you like, but he can still slice to his heart’s content.

God being omniscient pretty much hammers him in as the observer that matters, with respect to this. If this damages relativity…well, that’s not god’s problem; it just means the model would need to be adapted to fit the new ‘facts’.

That is not what Leibniz says. The argument that it’s logically impossible to reduce the amount of evil in the observable universe is bullcrap, and he doubtlessly was smart enough to know it. As I noted, he preferred to flirt with the idea that the evil in the world served some ‘higher’ purpose, than to pretend that it could not be removed at all. (Of course, ‘higher purposes’ is a debate that tends to stumble on omnipotence rather badly, with with God not needing means to his ends and all.)

Regardless of what his point was, I understand your point just fine. The problem is, it’s neither sound or valid as a disproof of or argument against the POE.

The disconnect is that your argument doesn’t do what you think it does. That is, the fact that there are possible worlds where evil is minimized is not a refutation of the POE - it’s a necessary part of the POE! The POE notes that there are optimal worlds and then shows though various evidential-based arguments that we’re not in any of those worlds. If you remove the possibility of optimal worlds, that actually requires a change to the POE to handle it. (My note above that omnipotence proves that god approves of everything that happens still works, though.)

So since we both agree that there are possible optimal worlds, all that remains is for you to disprove all proofs that our world is not one of those worlds. The disconnect here is that you seem to think that the statement “there are possible optimal worlds” disproves anything. It doesn’t, any more than “it’s logically possible in theory that my car could be white” counters the argument “I’m looking at your car and it’s black”.

So what you have failed to get across to me is why I should believe your argument is a disproof of anything. It certainly isn’t from a logical perspective.

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Ah, I see we’re at it again. HMHW, honestly, no offense taken. If you want to review my posts to decide whether to respond, those relating to the OP were Posts #195, #197 (second paragraph), #206, #212, #218 and #235. See also Leibniz and the Problem of Evil, The Logical Problem of Evil and The Evidential Problem of Evil. In a nutshell, my view is that the POE is an evidential one regarding intervention, not a logical one regarding creation. If you have the time, review the posts and articles. Let me know whether we have anything to discuss. If not, that’s okay.

begbert2, I can’t add much to the distinction between the logical and evidential POE than is discussed in the IEP articles. My understanding is that the the rules for each are quite different. As a materialist, I’m only really interested in evidential arguments. As regards the definition of benevolence, notice I complained about the global debate, not just this thread. IMHO, in an evidential inquiry, the broader definition makes much more sense. As regards Big Bang vs. LastThursdayism, ISTM the latter is strictly a logical argument, as no one actually believes it’s true. Indeed, the major Christian denominations (including the Catholic church) accept BB (and evolution). So, on that premise, we should look to intervention not creation as the nub of the problem.